"It's a very simple game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains."
(Bull Durham)

Monday, May 10, 2010

Monday, Monday

-- The Pirates DFA'ed Brain Bass. He's out of options, so he's fair game for anybody else's roster. Brian Burres will be the fifth starter and Jeff Karstens will be the long man for the time being.

-- Brendan Donnelly and his strained oblique are eligible to come off the DL Friday, but he won’t be activated until at least May 19th, when the Pirates start their next home stand.

The holdup is likely due to the combination of being careful with a oblique and the sudden log jam of pitchers in Pittsburgh.

-- GW failed to mention that Chris Jakubauskas has been shut down from baseball activities again after suffering from some minor dizziness on Friday. He's supposed to see the doc again today.

-- Dejan Kovacevic of the Post Gazette had a "Notebook" piece on Neil Walker today, featuring some management grumbles about attitude after he failed to run out a pop-up. GW isn't a fan of the brass taking players to task in the media, but then again, they should play the game right.

-- The Pirates have lost seventeen times; twelve have been by a six run margin or greater. They've won fourteen; nine have been by one or two runs.

-- The Pirates signed a pair of young Latino players after their appearance in the Dominican Prospect League All-Star game. They are Isaac Sanchez, 17, a RHP with control who features a nasty curveball, a fastball clocked at 89-92 mph, and a change-up.

The other is Miguel DeAza, 17, a left-handed outfielder who has good speed, a good arm, and is a contact hitter who the scouts hope fills out to become a power guy.

Sanchez signed for $180,000 and DeAza for $150,000 respectively, typical signing bonuses for players selected in the 7th-10th rounds of the draft.

2 comments:

Walker gets an asterisk next to his name as far as I'm concerned. Between his very serious wrist injury early in his career to his position switch, he's had more than his share of hurdles to overcome. Granted, he's also shown little to no plate discipline until very recently, ie, his late season hot streak in 2009 and his very productive 2010. Before that he was allergic to taking a walk, though he also didn't strike out much.

I also don't buy the idea that he isn't hustling or is somehow an attitude problem. At least, I've seen no evidence of such published or spoken anywhere else in the media, and I live in Louisville, which is less than 2 hours south of Indy and is one of Indy's most bitter opponents in the International League.

It's hard not to draw the conclusion that perhaps we're seeing some tit for tat from noted thin-skin Neil Huntington, after Walker told a reporter last season that he doubted he'd ever get a fair shot in Pittsburgh.

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